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 THE FUR COUNTRY. proportions. Mrs JolifFe served out slice after slice with liberal hands, yet there remained enough and to spare. Piles of sandwiches also figured on the table, in which ship biscuits took the place of thin slices of English bread and butter, and dainty morsels of corned beef that of the ham and stuffed veal of the old world. The sharp teeth of the Chippeway Indians made short work of the tough biscuits; and for drink there was plenty of whisky and gin handed round in little pewter pots, not to speak of a great bowl of punch which was to close the entertainment, and of which the Indians talked long afterwards in their wigwams. Endless were the compliments paid to the Joliffes that evening, but they deserved them ; how zealously they waited on the guests, with what easy grace they distributed the refreshments ! They did not need prompting, they anticipated the wishes of each one. The sandwiches were succeeded by slices of the inexhaustible pudding, the pudding by glasses of gin or whisky. " No, thank you, Mr Joliffe." " You are too good, Corporal ; but let me have time to breathe." " Mrs Joliffe, I assure you, I can eat no more." " Corporal Joliffe, I am at your mercy." " No more, Mrs Joliffe, no more, thank you ! " Such were the replies met with on every side by the zealous pair, but their powers of persuasion were such that the most reluctant yielded in the end. The quantities of food and drink consumed were really enormous. The hubbub of conversation increased. The soldiers and employes became excited. Here the talk was of hunt- ing, there of trade. What plans were laid for next season ! The entire fauna of the Arctic regions would scarcely supply game enough for these enterprising hunters. They already saw bears, foxes, and musk oxen, falling beneath their bullets, and pole-cats by hundreds caught in their traps. Their imagination pictured the costly furs piled up in the magazines of the Company, which was this year to realise hitherto unheard of profits. And whilst the spirits thus freely circulated inflamed the imagination of the Europeans, the large doses of Captain Craventy's " fire-water " imbibed by the Indians had an opposite effect. Too proud to sliow admiration, too cautious to make promises, the taciturn chiefs listened gravely and silently to the babel of voices around them. The captain enjoying the hurly burly, and pleased to see the poor people, brought back as it were to the civilised world, enjoying